I think I’m a bit late to the party on this one. ‘The Purge’ (2013) made a huge splash when it first came out and was successful enough to spawn several sequels and a series. Personally, it never appealed to me. To me it just looked like another run of the mill horror film despite the vaguely interesting concept. But with my dedication to watching only horror films this month it felt like the right time to buckle under the pressure, give it a go, and see if preconceptions were correct. The film takes place in 2022 where a new law has been brought in that allows for any crime to be committed for one night only. This particular Purge night sees the Sandin family terrorised by a group of masked strangers hell bent on fulfilling their right to purge.
So, lets answer the big question in the room, did the film go against my preconceptions? No. In fact, it was actually worse than I thought it would be. I would go so far to say I hated it. Okay, lets get the good stuff out of the way before dive in to tearing this film a new one. I like Ethan Hawke. Not necessarily in this film where I think he puts in a very mediocre performance, but I like him in general so there is that. Also, the concept is half decent. Horribly executed, but decent. I say horribly executed because with a concept such as this there are some interesting things you can do with it, but this film instead decides to be the dullest of jump scare filled films. The only horror it has to offer on any level is ‘quiet, quiet, quiet, BANG’ and it doesn’t even do that well. It didn’t even manage to get the smallest of flinches out of me. I suppose it also tries to be scary by having people wear scary masks or do their worst impression of the joker. It isn’t scary, instead coming across as what your amateur actors would do when asked to play psychopathic. Its hokey more than anything. I mean you might find the film scary if you like watching people fumble around in the dark, saying and doing nothing, occasionally running into something that will make a loud noise. But what that actually does instead of making your film scary is make it tedious and boring. But that is not the worst aspect of this film.
I would suggest that the alternate title of this film could be ‘Don’t Have Kids’. Seriously, fuck the kids in this film. Especially the little lad. The daughter, Zoey (Adelaide Kane), is annoying mostly because she is a teenager and teenagers are annoying. But also, she is stupid. When everything starts going wrong, she decides to find her parents to have a little cry then disappear. Then find her brother to have a little cry, then disappear. The writing of the character is horrendous In these scenarios, with the writers deciding to forgo any kind of logic for the character so that she can become the damsel in distress character of the film. But she is like a golden goddess compared to her little brother. This character is one of my least favourite in film ever. I might be slightly exaggerating, but seriously he is a piece of work. It is his fault that the film’s plot happens in the first place, so I hate him for that already, but he is also just a completely bizarre character. He is meant to be one of the heroes of the piece, the moral centre if you will. And for the most part I actually agree with the morality of the character, but not with his idiocy. He also has some weird obsession with his heart rate that doesn’t go anywhere. I think I also might have liked the character more if the actor wasn’t so bad. I don’t want to be to harsh because he is just a kid, but Jesus it’s like he has never had an emotion in his entire laugh. His line delivery is horrendous and feels completely disingenuous every time anything comes out of his mouth. In a film full of very poor performances, his is the worst.
I genuinely can’t believe this film spawned a franchise that is still going strong today. The concept is vaguely interesting, yes, but this film is so cookie cutter and even then, it is one of the weaker films of its type. For a horror film it is one of the least scary films I have ever scene and ended up being a bore. I couldn’t even start to recommend it. There is nothing here worthy of note. Even Ethan Hawke couldn’t pull it out of the shit.